Hospital Provision

The state budget approved by lawmakers on Tuesday would make it easier to open a mental hospital in Butner and clear the way for the closure of Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh by August. The spending plan headed to Gov. Mike Easley for his signature was stripped of a provision that would have required Central Regional Hospital to pass muster with outside inspectors before it can accept patients. Advocates for the mentally ill decried the change Tuesday, which effectively lets the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dempsey Benton, certify that the new hospital is safe to open. "They watered it down to where no certification by a third party will be required," said John Rittelmeyer, the director of legal services for the advocacy group Disability Rights North Carolina.

The opening of Central Regional has been repeatedly delayed amid concerns about projected staffing shortages and internal safety reviews that identified dozens of hazards in the $130 million building that could allow suicidal patients to kill themselves. The version of the budget approved by the Senate last month forbade Benton from opening the hospital until it met all staffing and safety standards from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Joint Commission, an independent organization that accredits hospitals. Benton and other administration officials lobbied hard to kill the provision, which could have delayed the planned move of patients from Dix and John Umstead Hospital in Butner for months.

In the final version of the budget presented to legislators Monday, the requirement had changed to allow Benton to determine when the new hospital complies with the standards of the outside regulators. The new bill requires that Benton send a written report to Easley attesting that the new hospital is safe. The change clears the way for Benton to stick to his current schedule, which calls for moving most patients from Umstead before the end of July and closing Dix within a couple weeks after that. Benton declined a request for an interview Tuesday. Rep. James Crawford, a House budget writer whose district includes the new hospital, acknowledged Tuesday that he was among those who pushed to strip the requirement for an outside review from the budget. He said safety concerns about Central Regional are overblown. (Michael Biesecker, THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 7/09/08).